This book considers the representation of disability and knighthood in Malory’s Morte Darthur. The study asserts that Malory’s unique definition of knighthood, which emphasizes the unstable nature of the knight’s physical body and the body of chivalry to which he belongs, depends upon disability. As a result, a knight must perpetually oscillate between disability and ability in order to maintain his status. The knights’ movement between disability and ability is also essential to the project of Malory’s book, as well as its narrative structure, as it reflects the text’s fixation on and alternation between the wholeness and fragmentation of physical and social bodies. Disability in its many forms undergirds the book, helping to cohere the text’s multiple and sometimes disparate chapters into the "hoole book" that Malory envisions. The Morte, thus, construes disability as an as an ambiguous, even liminal state that threatens even as it shores up the cohesive notion of knighthood the text endorses.

Dorsey Armstrong provides a new, Modern English translation of the MORTE DARTHUR that portrays the holistic and comprehensive unity of the text as a whole, as suggested by the structure of Caxton’s print, but that is based primarily on the Winchester Manuscript, which offers the most complete and accurate version of Malory’s narrative. This translation makes one of the most compelling and important texts in the Arthurian tradition easily accessible to everyone—from high school students to Arthurian scholars. In addition to the complete text, Armstrong includes an introduction that discusses Malory’s sources and the long-running debate surrounding the manuscript and print versions of the narrative. For ease of use, the text is keyed to both William Caxton’s print version and the manuscript version edited by Eugène Vinaver. A detailed index is also included.

This book endures and inspires because it embodies mankind's deepest yearnings: the power of brotherhood and community, the romance of a love worth dying for, and the moral rightness of valor, honor, and chivalry.

New study of Malory's sources reveals much about how the work was created and about Malory himself.